A Smallville look at Merlin

The Beguiling of Merlin by the Lady of the Lake Nimue painted by Edward Burne-Jones in the 19th century.

The BBC TV production of Merlin very deliberately looks at an alternative world to the traditional legends and mythologies surrounding this powerful magician. In the Camelot of this show, Merlin is the same age as Arthur and comes to court as a servant hiding a secret - the fact he has magic.King Uther Pendragon has banned magic and magic users on pain of death from his capital city and his kingdom following the death in childbirth of his wife Igrainne du'Bois. The creative team behind Merlin have said they were heavily influenced by the US TV series Smallville, which looks at the life of Clark Kent before he became Superman. Running over 10 seasons, Smallville began with a young Kent slowly coming to terms with the fact he was an alien and covered his years at high school and then as a reporter on the Daily Planet. It also had him being friends with Lex Luthor, at first, and introduced his two loves, Lana Lang and Lois Lane.

With their version of Merlin, the creators have been basically given a blank slate on which to write their own legend. It begins with Arthur and Merlin hating each other and the young warlock discovering it is his destiny to help Arthur create a great kingdom with Camelot at the heart of it.Series one focusses on establishing the background of these two characters as well as introducing some conflict for the pair who have to get used to the master/servant roles they start out with moving more towards mutual respect and friendship.Nimueh is set up as the major player for the opposition, setting out her stall in episode three with a plot to poison the water supply of Camelot. The reason for her hatred of Uther and Camelot isn't explained but we've already been given a glimpse of the fact magic is prohibited in episode one when Uther has a sorcerer executed in the castle courtyard.Once more, series two consists of mostly single story long episodes with the only real narrative running throughout being the ongoing friendship developing between Arthur and Merlin as well as Arthur's awakening to the attraction he feels for Gwen.The major villain, from series three onwards, is Morgana, Arthur's half sister (via Uther) together with her sister Morgause, who is seeking to overthrow the king and re-establish the Old Religion and bring magic back to the heart of Camelot.Along the way she hooks up with various other characters who aid her on either an ad hoc basis or provide a narrative continual story through multiple episodes.

Because the creators have established their own timeline for Merlin, they are able to draw from multiple sources and mythologies for the various story arcs which have driven the narrative through the current four seasons. So far they have included the majority of the major characters and events within Arthurian mythology. We have seen Uther Pendragon as king, we have a Morgan le Fey character in Morgana, our Guinevere (Gwen) is Morgana's maid and the daughter of a blacksmith, Lancelot is a commoner, Gwaine from noble stock, Percival is depicted almost like a circus strongman and we have two new knights in Sir Leon and Elyan, Gwen's brother. We have also seen new interpretations of Nimue, Morgause, Excalibur and the Lady of the Lake as well as mythical creatures usually found in Greek and Roman legends. Minor figures in Arthurian mythology have been given major roles in the TV series and other stories have been woven into the heart of this Camelot with not only the love story of Tristan and Isolde (Irish mythology) getting a new twist but also creatures such as the Afanc (a Welsh lake monster ), the Sidhe (Irish fairies), multi headed serpents (Greek and Indian mythology), dragons and The Cailleach (Gatekeeper) from Irish mythology have all played their parts over the four series.

With such a wide variety of open ended source material at their disposal, Merlin's creators have an almost unlimited supply of works from which to populate their world. It is noticeable that the last two series' have included a far more direct central narrative driving the show forward throughout all 13 episodes in each series, while still being able to have stand alone stories which work within the confines of of a single episode. Characters, objects, locations and the legends and mythologies used in Merlin will be examined within this blog, hopefully to provide a contrast between the BBC interpretation and that of the "historical" or mythological stories they reference.The show stars Colin Morgan as Merlin, Bradley James as Prince Arthur, Anthony Head as King Uther, Richard Wilson as Gaius, Katie McGrath as Morgana, Angel Coulby as Gwen and John Hurt as the voice of The Great Dragon (Kilgharrah).